Early Britain—Roman Britain eBook

F. 10.—­Yet another inscription worth notice
was unearthed in 1897, and tells how a water supply
to Cilurnum was brought from a source in the neighbourhood
through a subterraneous conduit by Asturian engineers
under Ulpius Marcellus (A.D. 160). That this should
have been done brings home to us the magnificent thoroughness
with which Rome did her work. Cilurnum stood
on a pure and perennial stream, the North Tyne, with
a massively-fortified bridge, and thus could never
be cut off from water; it was only some six acres
in total area; yet in addition to the river it received
a water supply which would now be thought sufficient
for a fair-sized town.[304] Well may Dr. Hodgkin say
that “not even the Coliseum of Vespasian or the
Pantheon of Agrippa impresses the mind with a sense
of the majestic strength of Rome so forcibly”
as works like this, merely to secure the passage of
a “little British stream, unknown to the majority
even of Englishmen.”

SECTION G.

Death of Severus—­Caracalla and Geta—­Roman
citizenship—­Extended to veterans—­Tabulae
honestae, missionis—­Bestowed on all
British provincials.

G. 1.—­This mighty work kept Severus in
Britain for the rest of his life. He incessantly
watched over its progress, and not till it was completed
turned his steps once more (A.D. 211) towards Rome.
But he was not to reach the Imperial city alive.
Scarcely had he completed the first stage of the journey
than, at York, omens of fatal import foretold his
speedy death. A negro soldier presented him with
a cypress crown, exclaiming, “Totum vicisti,
totum fuisti. Nunc Deus esto victor."[305]
When he would fain offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
he found himself by mistake at the dark temple of
Bellona; and her black victims were led in his train
even to the very door of his palace, which he never
left again. Dark rumours were circulated that
Caracalla, who had already once attempted his father’s
life, and was already intriguing with his stepmother,
was at the bottom of all this, and took good care
that the auguries should be fulfilled. Anyhow,
Severus never left York till his corpse was carried
forth and sent off for burial at Rome. With his
last breath he is said solemnly to have warned “my
Antonines” that upon their own conduct depended
the peace and well-being of the Empire which he had
so ably won for them.[306]

G. 2.—­The warning was, as usual, in vain.
Caracalla and Julia were now free to work their will,
and, having speedily got rid of her son Geta, entered
upon an incestuous marriage. The very Caledonians,
whose conjugal system was of the loosest,[307] cried
shame;[308] but the garrison of the Wall which kept
them off was, as we have seen, officered by Julia’s
creatures, and all beyond it was definitely abandoned,[309]
not to be recovered for two centuries.[310] The guilty
pair returned to Rome, and a hundred and thirty years
elapsed before another Augustus visited Britain.[311]